Feedback on Spotting for Higby

ringring · 2013-01-10, 03:22 PM

As requested via tweet.

Personally I would remove it.

a) I never spot myself simply because I play left-handed with left on mouse and right on cursor keys. I have to rebind important keys near to the cursors for quick access and spotting comes fairly low down the list after TS, 'g', 'f', up, down and so on.
b) if there is ever a random in my tanks I often hear , enemy XXXXX spotted, but I never see what he's referring to.
c) if I ever do see a red dot on the map and investigate it there is nothing there.

In short, I can't use it in a practical sense and I don't find it useful when other people do.

Maybe some kind of radar may be needed, especially on amp to boost defence, but I'd hesitate to recommend something.

ShadetheDruid · 2013-01-10, 03:32 PM

I never use it either. The majority of my reasoning for that is I generally play flanky/stealthy/ambushy, and spotting just gives away your position so easily.

I rebound Q to change weapon fire mode instead.

Edit: I should clarify that i'm not against the spotting mechanic itself, just that it doesn't mesh with my usual playstyle (which is fine). Thus, indifference, really.

musefrog · 2013-01-10, 03:32 PM

I think spotting is very useful - I like receiving warnings from other infantry when on a quietish base defence and the enemy starts attacking again. It helps make up for the lack of enemy troop warnings in the voicemacros too.

Edit: plus, being a not very good player in one-on-one combat, I like at least being useful as a spotter (and getting bits of xp for it too).

Killjaeden · 2013-01-10, 03:33 PM

You are handicapping yourself if you use the arrow keys - why is that the game's fault? Why not use the Numberpad? plenty of surrounding buttons there. In that position you also have your thumb on the arrow keys for more functions - right handed players have only one key for their thumb and that is the space bar.

If you see a red triangle over an enemy, that's because somebody spotted him. Countless times people only get aware of a sniper in a distant, but obvious spot if someone spots him and others see his triangle.

I do also love if "sneaky" enemies Q-spot all the time, so i can locate them

Artesia · 2013-01-10, 03:46 PM

A. make spotting only spot for players nearby, doritos shouldn't show up for someone 1km away

B. make it temporary. If you haven't been spotted in several minutes or you travel far enough, you should have your dorito removed

C. If you fire a weapon it should attempt to auto-spot.

D. spotting should show squad mates direction.

All of the above could be certed/increased by cert ie increased spotting time/range

maradine · 2013-01-10, 03:57 PM

I love the spotting system, though I'm not sure it's always working as attended. It's a passable substitue for having voice communications with everyone, and is an effective way to pass off targets that you can't handle yourself.

p0intman · 2013-01-10, 03:59 PM

spotting is utterly useless as it stands. id just remove it and be done with the problem.

SeraphC · 2013-01-10, 06:00 PM

Originally Posted by p0intman

spotting is utterly useless as it stands. id just remove it and be done with the problem.

It's really not. It lets someone with an overview of the field pass on positions to team mates. I think it's a really useful and interesting feature and it's fine the way it is. It's one of the few features that actually give us a sense past the simple visual.
Just because you don't use it and/or it doesn't fit your play style does not mean it's useless.

It would be ridiculous without the call out, but with it it's a solid feature.

SexyTRex · 2013-01-10, 03:58 PM

I do feel like spotting should be a lot less for regular soldiers and greatly increased for infiltrators and scout equipment. While I use the IFF device a bit it's not terribly effective since the minimap is a jumbled mess.

Eliphas · 2013-01-10, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by SexyTRex

I do feel like spotting should be a lot less for regular soldiers and greatly increased for infiltrators and scout equipment. While I use the IFF device a bit it's not terribly effective since the minimap is a jumbled mess.

Agreed.

Helwyr · 2013-01-10, 05:33 PM

I agree, removing spotting would be an improvement. I have used Q spam a lot in the past for easily finding targets and sharing that info with friendlies. Since the change that adds the voice I never use it as an Infiltrator when I'm away from friendlies as it just gives my presence away to nearby enemies. So, if as some other posters suggest it ought to be a mostly Infiltrator tool, I would say at present it is least useful to the Infiltrator class and probably most useful to long range Vehicle AE weapons farming Infantry.

Eggy · 2013-01-10, 05:53 PM

Originally Posted by Artesia

A. make spotting only spot for players nearby, doritos shouldn't show up for someone 1km away

B. make it temporary. If you haven't been spotted in several minutes or you travel far enough, you should have your dorito removed

C. If you fire a weapon it should attempt to auto-spot.

D. spotting should show squad mates direction.

All of the above could be certed/increased by cert ie increased spotting time/range

B, C and D are how spotting allready works.
If your not shot, or spotted again with just a few seconds your dorito goes.

Auto spotting is affected by weapon attatchments, muzzle flash and weapon sound. Or did you mean auto-spot the targets you shoot at?

Direction is shown (for infantry) by the spotted icon on the radar being an arrow rather than a dot. You can press "H" to see a bigger radar and thus more spotted targets. This is also an indication of "freshness" of the spot. An arrow is a live, moving visible target and a dot is where something was a few seconds ago. This is it least how I have been unsing the radar.

If you see something on the radar and it isnt moving then there is large chance its a radar ghost due to a bug, or the cloaker tool specificaly designed to add ghosts.

The only thing I would change about spotting is making it so that you cant spot from the bomber slot of a liberator. The rest of the current system I think is fine.

Stadulator · 2013-01-10, 10:21 PM

Originally Posted by Artesia

A. make spotting only spot for players nearby, doritos shouldn't show up for someone 1km away

B. make it temporary. If you haven't been spotted in several minutes or you travel far enough, you should have your dorito removed

C. If you fire a weapon it should attempt to auto-spot.

D. spotting should show squad mates direction.

All of the above could be certed/increased by cert ie increased spotting time/range

I like every one of these

Timealude · 2013-01-10, 03:37 PM

I used q most the time as an infiltrator since its one of the things we can do best is get a very good visual without being seen. If you were to remove it..remove it for the other classes but by removing it from infiltrator your handicapping a class that in itself isnt extremely powerful to begin with.

Phantomdestiny · 2013-01-10, 03:52 PM

we did speak about photographic spotting back in the day in the idea vault ; not sure if people remember